Hill Country Writer

In response to the Myth of Millions, Andre wrote:

I agree - write for the joy of it. A writer has to write...whether there are potential monetary reward is secondary...you do it because it's how God wired you.

My response to Andre outgrew the comment section, so here it is:

I write because it's the talent God gave me (to mix metaphors with the parable of the talents).

Not to write is the same as burying that talent in the ground.

In short, writing is my high calling.

The thing is--so many people expect God to reward their talent with monetary success and physical comfort. I've even talked with young writers who acted as if God was obligated to reward their desire to write! We expect God to bless our words so that they rise to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. I remember even recently turning in prayer request cards that asked, "Pray that God would give me 5,000 words this week."

On the one hand, I think praying specific prayers is good. On the other hand, those requests bordered on treating God like he was some kind of literary slot machine. If I kept pulling the crank, I'd eventually hit the jackpot.

But God isn't a Greek Muse. He just calls me to write. So I do.

With some luck and a LOT of hard work, maybe someday I'll make some money directly from my writing.

For those interested, I've made exactly $90.00 from my writing in the past five years.

But I've been much more focused lately, and I've got some tangible and achievable monetary goals for the next nine months.

And don't worry, readers, I'm not going to hit up any of you with product or service offers. This isn't that kind of blog.

Three tangents:
1. Check out the new category links in my side bar. Cool! They might even work as tags for Technorati, I'm not sure yet.
2. Also, I added some new stuff to the bottom of each post. If you like something, digg it or add it to del.icio.us!
3. I have to edit a book this week, so I'll be out of pocket for a bit.